Windies batting flops again

In an abject performance that was even more galling than their capitulations in both innings of the first Test in Brisbane, where they were mauled by 379 runs, the visitors lost their last seven wickets for 30 runs in being routed for 149 in less than 69 overs after choosing to bat first in conditions that could not have been more tailor-made for batting.

As if to emphasise just what they had missed out on, the hosts reached 60 without loss from 18 overs before stumps were drawn, with Matthew Hayden not out on 31 and Mike Hussey on 26 not out.

The West Indies’ paltry effort established a new record Test innings low at Bellerive, beating the 161 by New Zealand in both innings of the 1993-94 Test here. Veteran pacer Glenn McGrath led the rout with four wickets for 31 runs from 23 overs, while fast bowler Brett Lee and leg-spinner Stuart MacGill took three wickets each.

MacGill yet again made an impact after being dropped for the first Test, and once more out-bowled his more celebrated counterpart, Shane Warne, who went wicketless off 11 overs.

Not even the sensational news of Trinidad and Tobago’s qualification for the 2006 FIFA World Cup Finals in Germany just hours before the start of play could lift the Caribbean side’s effort.

It all felt so different at the start of play when Shivnarine Chanderpaul won the toss with the visitors correcting the obvious selectorial error of the first Test and replacing Jermaine Lawson with Dwayne Bravo.

Yet expectations among the few West Indian fans present, and indeed several thousand Tasmanians hoping for a contest, quickly faded in the bright morning sunshine.

Getting no assistance from the pitch, Lee’s sheer speed at full length accounted for Devon Smith, who was bowled off the inside edge after half-hour. Chris Gayle then had to retire temporarily suffering from what appeared to be a recurrence of the ill feeling that he occasionally suffers from a result of a congenital heart condition.

At the other end, Ramnaresh Sarwan copied his first innings dismissal in Brisbane, pushing at McGrath to give a simple catch to wicketkeeper Adam Gilchrist and ushering in Chanderpaul to partner Brian Lara at 26 for two.

The pair survived to lunch, when just 49 runs had been scratched from 26 overs, but Lara on 13, again became the victim of another questionable LBW decision, Pakistani umpire Aleem Dar supporting Lee’s appeal despite bowling around-the-wicket to the left-hander.

Gayle resumed his innings on Lara’s demise and hit Warne out of the attack with sixes in consecutive overs. Another rasping boundary off Andrew Symonds took him to his 50 off 88 balls with seven fours and two sixes, but he then lost Chanderpaul for 39 just before tea to a bat-pad catch by debutant Brad Hodge at short-leg in MacGill’s second over to end a 59-run fourth-wicket partnership.

It proved the explosion that triggered the now usual landslide of West Indian wickets.

As Hayden and Hussey set about laying a formidable platform for the Australian reply at the end of the day, Ramdin was slow to react when Hussey, on three, edged Edwards just to his left and short of Gayle at slip.